Towards an Open Datacenter with an Interoperable Network
Part I – Why Standardize ?

Standards have played a pivotal role throughout history. Just ask my 9th grade daughter. This story is going to sound like a digression, but bear with me…like most stories, there’s an important morale at the end that will save money for your IT organization.

This past week, my daughter learned that the economic unification of China between 247 – 221 BC was due, in part, to the standardization of weights and measures, including the length of ox cart axles (which facilitated transport of goods on the road systems ). The history of technology contains many examples like this one, showing how standards are beneficial. They promote buying confidence by helping to future-proof purchases (no need to worry that your new ox cart won’t fit on the roads). They encourage competition and commoditization, which lowers capital expense (if all the ox carts are the same size, then I can buy the lowest priced cart that fits my needs). And they promote innovation, interoperability and avoid confusion in the marketplace (does it matter if my ox cart is red or blue, as long as it fits on the road? Probably not. But if I can build a cart with the same axel width that can hold twice as much produce, then I’ve created meaningful innovation and differentiated myself from the other ox carts).

In the same way, a standardized approach to more modern commodities, like data center switches, makes sense too. Much has been written about how we can standardize on parts of the solution that have long development times, like silicon ASICs, and differentiate through those aspects which have faster turnaround, like software.

But what about the benefits of buying all your ox carts from the same place? Doesn’t this mean you can get lower prices from buying in bulk and having a good relationship with a single ox cart provider? Won’t you have to train your mechanics to only fix one kind of ox cart, using a common set of tools, and thus save training expenses? Surprisingly, the answer is no to all of these questions, according to a study conducted by Gartner Group for major networking equipment vendors at a large number of customer deployments. For example, this study found that working with a single vendor actually costs a premium of up to 20% over multi-sourced environments, since that vendor isn’t constrained by competitive pricing. Since the tools to fix different types of ox carts (and network switches) are mostly common regardless of brand, there isn’t a need to increase staff or training.

In fact, according to this study, CIOs who don’t re-evaluate their single vendor networking choices aren’t living up to their fiduciary responsibilities. So check out this report for more details, and next time I’ll tell you how to distinguish between true industry standard networking implementations, and those who just want to take you for a ride in their ox cart.

Questions about how networking standards can save you money? Ask me through either my blog or Twitter feed.

Towards an Open Data Center with an Interoperable Network
Part II – What are we trying to fix?

Over the past several years, progressive data centers have undergone fundamental and profound architectural changes. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the data center network infrastructure. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the problems with conventional networks, and next time we’ll introduce the fundamentals of an approach to deal with these issues.

Instead of under-utilized devices, multi-tier networks, and complex management environments, the modern data center is characterized by highly utilized servers running multiple VMs, flattened, lower latency networks, and automated, integrated management tools. Software defined network overlays are emerging which will greatly simplify the implementation of features such as dynamic workload provisioning, load balancing, redundant paths for high availability, and network reconfiguration. Cloud networks with multi-tenancy, resource pooling, and other features are becoming increasingly commonplace. Finally, to provide business continuity and backup/recovery of mission critical data, high bandwidth links between virtualized data center resources are extended across multiple data center locations.

Highly virtualized data centers offer greater resource utilization and lower costs. They can also simplify management if network issues such as latency, resilience, and multi-tenant support for public and private cloud environments are addressed. To realize the greatest benefits from virtualization, networks must be optimized to support high volumes of east-west traffic. This can be accomplished by flattening the network to a two-tier design, using Layer 2 domains to facilitate VM migration, and deploying network overlays to enable efficient virtual switches. While existing storage networks will likely continue in their present role for some time, the opportunity to converge networking and storage traffic is enabled by new lossless networking protocols that guarantee data frame delivery. Each of these exercises requires a non-trivial extension of the existing data network. Collectively, they present a daunting array of complex network infrastructure changes, with fundamental and far-reaching implications for the overall data center design.

The networking industry has responded to these changes with a bewildering array of standardized and proprietary solutions, making it difficult to determine the best course of action. IBM believes that the practical, cost-effective evolution of data networks must be based on open industry standards and end-to-end interoperability of multi-vendor solutions (for a few words on the importance of standards, see my last blog entry). That’s why IBM has recently published a series of technical briefs, endorsed by many industry leading companies, that lay out a path towards an open data center with an interoperable network (which we’ll call by its acronym ODIN….after the ruler of Asguard in ancient Norse mythology. Coincidentally, his symbol the valknut looks a bit like a 2 ties network topology).

Next time, we’ll give you an overview of the first series of ODIN documents and discuss why they’re important. Let me know the biggest problems in your network by responding to this post below, or for shorter problems on my Twitter feed.

Earlier today, IBM released a series of technical briefs describing the Open Datacenter Interoperable Network (ODIN) during InterOp. The ODIN approach to open networking has been endorsed by Extreme Networks, and you can read about it in their blog post. Both companies share a commitment to open industry standards within the data center network, an approach which should benefit clients with a lower total cost of ownership and superior performance.

During a webinar presented at InterOp 2012 describing how to prepare your infrastructure for the cloud using open standards, Huawei has indicated their support for the Open Datacenter Interoperable Network (ODIN) approach. Huawei joins a growing number of companies who recognize that the best path forward for next generation data centers lies in the use of open industry standards and protocols. You can read more about the importance of open standards and ODIN in my earlier blog posts or through my Twitter feed. Stay tuned for the latest news from InterOp and the world of data center networking !

Following the recent release of the Open Datacenter Interoperable Network (ODIN) technical briefs at InterOp 2012, several companies have publicly pledged their support for the ODIN approach to open standards. Most recently, BigSwitch Networks has posted to their blog with a nice summary of recent open standards activities at InterOp, including their endorsement of the ODIN technical briefs. IBM deeply appreciates this show of support for open standards in the data center network, including the full breadth of software defined networking (SDN) approaches (both overlay networks and OpenFlow). IBM has demonstrated the industry's first 40G OpenFlow enabled switch, and continues to drive strong innovation in SDN and other aspects of the ODIN design approach. Keep watching this blog for more news on ODIN and InterOp 2012, or follow my Twitter feed.

Following IBM's announcement this past week at InterOp, there has been a surge of interest in the recently proposed Open Datacenter Interoperable Network (ODIN) technical briefs. I'm pleased to report that Adva Optical Networking, a leading wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) company specializing in WAN transport, has endorsed the ODIN approach on their blog. There's never been a better opportunity for cloud data centers to get in on the ground floor by designing their next generation networks around the best practices and open industry standards referenced in ODIN. We appreciate Adva's support of this direction, and look forward to working with leading industry networking companies to implement the ODIN design recommendations in modern data center networks.

I’m pleased to report that Juniper Networks has publicly endorsed the open data center interoperable network (ODIN) approach to designing data center networks. If you've been following this blog, then you know that on May 8, IBM released a set of technical briefs describing ODIN during the InterOp conference in Las Vegas. This approach to using industry standards as the preferred means to designing data center networks has been supported by Juniper, as discussed in this blog post from Liz King, Vice-President of Global Alliances. Many thanks to Juniper for their support of open networking standards; I’m sure we’ll have more to say about how these solutions should be designed in the near future.

As noted in a recent post on this blog, Huawei had included a mention of the Open Datacenter Interoperable Network (ODIN) in their InterOp Webinar on open standards for cloud networking. In addition, Huawei has now posted a more detailed endorsement of ODIN on their blog site. According to this site, " ODIN addresses best practices and interpretations of networking standards that are vital to efficient data center operation". For those of you who haven't reviewed the ODIN materials yet, they include a description of the transformation taking place in modern data center networks and how to best address these issues using open industry standards. Keep watching this space for more news on ODIN and other data center networking issues.

During the 2012 InterOp conference in Las Vegas, IBM introduced a set of technical briefs describing the path towards creating an Open Datacenter with an Interoperable Network (ODIN). The approach of using open industry standards in the data center network was recently endorsed by NEC Corporation on their corporate blog. In particular, NEC mentions IBM's work with the Open Network Foundation (ONF) and their efforts to create software-defined networking standards (including both OpenFlow and network overlays) for next generation data center networks. I'm very pleased by NEC's support for software-defined networking and other open standards in the data center network, stay tuned to this blog or my Twitter feed to hear more about this and related topics.

In addition to the many industry leading companies who have endorsed IBM's recently released technical briefs, describing an Open Datacenter with an Interoperable Network (ODIN), the first academic endorsement of ODIN has recently come from Marist College (Go Red Foxes !). In their endorsement, Marist notes that their support of ODIN was part of their broader efforts to insure that the next generation of technology students are prepared for the challenges which await them. Marist also cited their related work with the National Science Foundation funded lab for enterprise computing, their network interoperability lab, and their cloud computing computational resources. Also commenting on ODIN as part of their Twitter feed were IBM Vice President Ross Mauri (a member of the Marist Board of Directors) and Marist Vice President and Chief Information Officer Bill Thirsk. I'm sure there will be opportunities for IBM and other ODIN supporters to work with colleges such as Marist on research and interoperability that will benefit the open design principles set forth in the ODIN documents.